Austin, Lubbock go bag and forth with promotions

May 5, 2006

By:  CHRIS VAN WAGENEN
Lubbock Avalanche Journal

The city of Austin - host of this week's prestigious World Congress on Information Technology - apparently placed a rush order for 2,000 tote bags promoting its own city after tiring of a red-and-black message promoting Lubbock and Texas Tech.

"And I thought this would be a boring conference," said Gary Lawrence, CEO of the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance, whose organization is having the last laugh.

The stir surfaced earlier this week at the Austin Convention Center, where the city-appointed economic development corporation gave away to visiting CEOs and academicians 2,200 red-and-black canvass bags promoting the congress with the message "Lubbock Economic Development Alliance - Home of Texas Tech University."

LEDA again took center stage Thursday - this time on the front page of the Austin American-Statesman in a story headlined "Austin matches Lubbock tote-for-tote at tech conference."

The story quoted Austin City Manager Toby Futrell as saying whoever thought it was a good idea to let Lubbock hand out the tote bags "should have to spend a week in Lubbock."

Lawrence said that's fine with him. "I plan to contact the (conference) organizers and their families and invite them here for a weekend."

Lawrence said he could have never envisioned the publicity Lubbock is getting from, of all things - tote bags.

"From what we've been told by others, they're (city of Austin) just embarrassed about it," Lawrence said.

And if the tote bag promotion wasn't enough, he said an autographed basketball signed by Texas Tech coach Bob Knight that LEDA gave away to further promote the city managed to rankle other feathers in Austin.

"We had six people who tried to buy it outright," he said.

All of this has amused LEDA Chairman David Alderson, general manager of Alderson Cadillac-BMW-Lexus, who stayed in Lubbock this week. "I wish we could think of a car promotion that worked this well," he joked.